Tech News 2Night 185 (Transcript)

[Top TN2 Animation ] Tonight! JPMorgan says 76 million households are affected by their security breach, Facebook's new guidelines for experimenting on users, and an unpatchable USB malware is on the loose. Tech News 2Night is Next! [TWiT Open] [Main TN2 Open] This is Tech News 2Night Episode #185, for Thursday October 2nd, 2014 Citrix GoToAssist the #1 Global Market Leader in Remote Support. Sign up for GoToAssist before October 10th to get another Citrix product FREE for 6 months! Visit GoToAssist dot com and get started! I'm Sarah Lane, Let's get right to the Tech Feed! Another day, another massive security breach. In a regulatory filing, JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the US, says a data breach affected 76 million households and 7 million small businesses, and that customer names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses were taken. A person briefed on the matter tells Bloomberg that Internal data that identify customers by category, for example private-bank clients, was also obtained by hackers. The breach reportedly affected anyone who visited the company’s websites, including Chase.com, or used its mobile app. The company says that the data breach was previously disclosed, and that “There is no evidence that account information for such affected customers -– account numbers, passwords, user IDs, dates of birth or Social Security numbers –- was compromised during this attack." Gigabytes of data were siphoned by hackers in the attack, which lasted over a period of months, people familiar with the incident told Bloomberg back in August, and investigators in the case tracked stolen files to a Russian data center. / After Google's Sundar Pichai expressed interest in acquriing Cyanogen as part of Google's Android group, Cyanogen is reportedly seeking additional funding at a $1 billion valuation. This is according to a report today published by The Information. Cyanogen is the world's most popular Android custom ROM, and has partnerships with Oppo and OnePlus, and the The Information claims that the company also has a deal with Indian Android phone manufacturer Micromax to release a CM-powered handset as soon as the end of the year. / A dozen celebrities whose iCloud accounts were hacked and whose nude photos were stolen in late August have hired attorney Marty Singer to represent them against.... Google.... in a letter that threatens a $100 million lawsuit. Singer's letter calls out "Google’s despicable, reprehensible conduct in not only failing to act expeditiously and responsibly to remove the Images, but in knowingly accommodating, facilitating and perpetuating the unlawful conduct." Singer also claims that Google hasn't been expeditiously removing owned work from its platforms in accordance with safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, while other companies like Twitter have accommodated takedown demands. / Remember Facebook's "emotional manipulation" research project that upset a lot of its users who claimed that the company should not be playing head games in our News Feeds? Well, the cmpany has set up a new formal review process for pre-approving research. Consent from users on experiments is already in its Terms Of Service statement, so by default, users automatically agree to some form of experimentation by being Facebook members, but the company's new framework for internal and external research now has clear guidelines. Facebook says if the research focuses on specific populations or demographics or is related to content “considered deeply personal (such as emotions), the study will have to endure an enhanced review process will before being pre-approved. A panel of senior researchers in different subject matters like privacy, legal, research, policy, and engineering will determine if a study meets the guidelines. Engineers will be trained during their six-week introductory bootcamp on how research should be conducted. And veteran employees will also get education on proper research methods during annual security and privacy training sessions. / Back when Apple introduced iOS 7, it also introduced a security feature called Activation Lock that prevents anyone from erasing or activating an iOS device without entering an Apple ID and password first. The feature must be disabled before a device is passed or sold to another person, and ailure to do so renders the device unusable for the new owner. The company recently released a new tool that lets anyone check the Activation Lock status of iOS devices to make the process of checking for Activation Lock easier, and prevent people from buying a device that might have been locked because it was lost, stolen, or because the previous owner forgot remove the device from their account. By going to iCloud.com/ActivationLock, anyone can look up their iOS device. If the device is locked, a message clarifies that the current user’s Apple ID and password will be required before anyone else can activate it. / The Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, is reporting today that ComputerCOP, a popular software program designed to protect children online, is actually spyware containing a “keylogger,” that could place a family’s personal information at risk by transmitting whatever a user types over the Internet to third-party servers without encryption. The EFFsays it conducted a security review of ComputerCOP plus public records of its involvement, and identified approximately 245 agencies in more than 35 states, plus the U.S. Marshals, that have used public funds to purchase and distribute ComputerCOP, and that one sheriff’s department even bought a copy for every family in its county. Coming up, if you're tired of the subtle click of the iOS keyboard, get ready for some crazy new ideas. And next I'll talk with Iain Thomson from The Register about why researchers publicly posted malware that affects USBs [AD] "Managing your company’s IT support needs can be challenging, especially when you have remote or mobile employees… That’s why I highly recommend Citrix GoToAssist, the #1 Global Market Leader in Remote Support This easy to use, cloud-based remote support solution allows you and your IT team to solve problems faster And if you sign up for GoToAssist before October 10th – you’ll get another Citrix product of your choice FREE for 6 months! GoToAssist Remote Support lets you provide live and unattended remote support to any computer or mobile device Screen share to diagnose and fix support problems faster and more effectively… And use GoToAssist apps to easily deliver support anytime, anywhere If you work in IT, I want you to try GoToAssist… [[Call to Action]] Sign up for GoToAssist today and get another Citrix tool FREE for 6 months Visit Go To Assist dot com and get started! But Don’t Wait – This special offer ends October 10th Visit Go To Assist dot com and sign up to receive this special offer TODAY [Segment #2] Iain Thomson Tech News reporter with The Register Two months ago at BlackHat researcher Karsten Nohl told us about BadUSB- a way malware can be introduced by the firmware on a USB. He did not release the code. Now the code to do this is out in the wild. What happened? - Why did they post the code? - Who are these two that released the code and is this irresponsible? -Is there a way to defend against it? - What happens now? [Kicker!] You know how Apple allows 3rd party keyboards to be installed for the first time in iOS 8? Well, how about a keyboard designed to sound like Jack Nicholson. The app is called keySonic, a creation of a company called dSonic, which made some of the sound effects in the first Bioshock game. The app comes with six free sound sets, and there's an option to buy 21 others. One of those is designed to sound like an electric guitar. [[pause for nats]] There's also one made entirely of fart noises. For just 99 cents, you can also buy one made specifically to highlight Jack Nicholson laughing in the movie The Shining as you type. Another is called Restricted Access, designed to sound like a security keypad. Or how about Creepy Circus? It plays a rather obnoxious sound of a clown when you hit the "e" on your keyboard. [good bye] That's it for this edition of Tech News 2Night. Subscribe to this show at Twit.tv/tn2, and write us at tn2@twit.tv Don't miss our morning news program, Tech News Today, tomorrow and every weekday at 10am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern. I'm Sarah Lane, thanks for watching.